The big advantage of advertising online is that it provides a reach unrivalled, certainly in terms of its affordability, by most other media. Its national (and international) coverage means that smaller businesses can compete with their larger rivals without having recourse to the sort of advertising budgets demanded by such conventional media as the press and television.

For businesses that depend on e-commerce, one of the greatest problems is the loss of personal contact with their customers. For many small enterprises, the thing that sets them apart from larger corporations is their ability to deliver a personal touch.

It is tempting to think that if your computer system is fulfilling its function upgrading it is an unnecessary expense, but technology is changing so fast that if you fail to keep up you might find that a competitor is able to do the same work at a much lower cost.

Do you know what products or services your competitors are selling, how they are promoting them, what prices they are asking, how customers or clients are relating to them, and what they have planned for the future?